


Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me

by DoubleNegative



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Canon, omgcp trope challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 09:44:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7503507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleNegative/pseuds/DoubleNegative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eventually Jack came back to himself, as he always did, shaky and exhausted but alive, and Shitty wrapped up his rambling story. “Anyway, man, that’s why if you ever have kids you shouldn’t make bets with your hedge fund buddies on their names. You’ll end up with a son named Barnaby Sylvester Knight, and trust me, that is no way to start a father-son relationship.”</p><p>“That’s a pretty awful name,” Jack whispered. “Thanks, man.”</p><p>Shitty just squeezed him tighter and didn’t protest at all when Jack finally drifted off, drooling a little on his pillow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me

It began, as most things did, with Shitty’s failure to understand boundaries. They’d just suffered a hard loss against Quinnipiac on their first roadie, and while several years and a lot of therapy had given Jack a whole new arsenal of “healthy coping techniques,” cuddling wasn’t one of them.

Or at least, cuddling wasn’t one of them _to Jack_. To Shitty, it seemed to be a second language.

Jack had curled up in his uncomfortable, slightly-musty-smelling hotel bed immediately after his shower, turned his face to the wall, and pretended to fall asleep. He’d almost convinced himself he was asleep when the mattress heaved and a tangle of uncoordinated limbs tumbled into the bed behind him.

“‘S okay, brah, it‘s just me,” Shitty whispered, spooning up behind Jack and wrapping an arm around his middle. “You looked like you needed to be the little spoon for awhile.”

“I was asleep,” Jack said.

“Sorry, man, but no one could be that tense while they’re _actually_ asleep.” He nestled closer, and nuzzled--actually _nuzzled_ \--at the back of Jack’s neck. His mustache, recently grown and clearly a source of great pride, tickled at Jack’s bare skin. “Fuck those Quinnipiac goons, though, seriously.” He patted at Jack’s stomach, in a way that was clearly meant to be reassuring. “We’ll get ‘em next time.”

Jack sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about it, Shits.”

“Sure, sure. We can just snuggle; that’s cool.”

Jack sighed again. He wasn’t sure he wanted to snuggle, either, but on the other hand, he was weirdly comfortable. Shitty was smaller than he was, but warm, and for once he didn’t smell like weed and sriracha. He rubbed his hand absently against Jack’s stomach, quiet for once, and Jack relaxed by degrees.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone touched him off the ice, except for his parents. He wasn’t dating, for obvious reasons, and he didn’t really want to, but… but it was nice, cuddling with Shitty.

After a few more minutes thinking about it while he drifted towards slumber, he told Shitty as much. Jack reached back sleepily to pat him on the hip, then yanked his hand back when he encountered bare skin.

“Fuck, man, where are your pants?”

“Boring,” Shitty said. “I’ve been wearing hockey shit for hours. I need some _freedom_ , dude.”

“Can’t you have freedom on your own sheets?” Jack grumbled, but he couldn’t summon up much real anger. It didn’t seem worth it, kicking Shitty out of bed for not wearing pants. Not this time, anyway. Not when they were both already so comfortable. He settled back down and readjusted his pillow.

“If you’re going to be naked in my bed,” Jack said a few minutes later, on the verge of sleep, “then at least tell me your real name.”

Jack could tell Shitty wasn’t asleep yet, but he remained quiet for long enough that Jack wasn’t sure he’d answer at all.

“Berwick Shelley Knight,” Shitty said finally. He planted a loud, bristly kiss on the back of Jack’s neck. “Now go to sleep, Jackie. We’ve got an important continental breakfast to eat in the morning.”

Jack fell asleep with the smile still lingering on his lips.

 

* * *

 

 

They won their next three games, and then lost to Harvard in overtime. It had been a terrible game for Jack; he couldn’t seem to get a single damn puck into the goal. Afterwards, he stripped off his gear and showered in thunderous silence, shrugging off Betsy’s back slap and Johnson’s cryptic encouragement before wedging himself into the very corner of his bus seat.

Shitty trailed quietly behind him all the way up to their shared hotel room. Not five minutes after Jack flung himself into bed and yanked the itchy comforter up around his shoulders, Shitty slid in behind him and wrapped his arms around Jack’s chest.

The knot between his shoulders eased slightly. The iron band that seemed to squeeze the air from his lungs relaxed. Not all the way. Not enough. But a little. He let out his breath in a long slow exhale, and behind him, Shitty hummed happily. “That’s right, bro,” he said. “Just let all that fucking tension out. We’re gonna make that breakfast buffet _weep_ tomorrow, and it’s going to be beautiful.”

“I’ll try to save you a strawberry yogurt,” Jack whispered. He didn’t really want to talk, but he also didn’t want to sleep yet, or to lie there in silence and stew.

“I’d offer to save you an extra Raisin Bran in return, but you are literally the only fucker on the planet who eats that shit,” Shitty said.

“It has a lot of fiber,” Jack said, as though this wasn’t a conversation they’d had at a dozen previous team breakfasts.

“So does the box it comes in, but I don’t see you pouring milk over that.” Shitty squeezed his shoulder. “It’s okay, brah, I love you for your old-man cereal _and_ your world-class ass.”

“Good to know,” Jack said. “You know what else would be good to know? Your name.”

“I told you last time, dude. It’s Bartleby Sherwyn Knight.” Shitty’s mustache was well past “scratchy” and solidly into “tickly” territory, and every time he spoke, it seemed to catch on Jack’s hair.

“Tell me your real name, Bartleby.”

Shitty sniffed. “I would prefer not to.”

“Fine, have it your way. G’night, Shits.”

 

* * *

 

It went on like that for the rest of the season. For awhile, Jack kept a list on his phone with his favorite fake names. Beaufort Stirling Knight. Boris Sherard Knight. Bernard Sebastian, Brazen Storm, Braxton Steele, Barrington Sinclair. Busby Sartorius Knight IV.

“ _Busby_?” Jack sputtered at that last one, momentarily distracted from the clawing sense of failure in his chest after a grinding loss against a team they should’ve taken easily. “Is that even a real name?”

Shitty pulled back, offended. “Of course it’s a real name. It’s _my_ real name--shared, unfortunately, with at least three previous generations of terrible Knight men.”

“ _Busby,_ ” Jack whispered into his pillow, laughing in spite of himself.

 

* * *

 

It became a code word, of sorts, over the course of the season, so by the time the season ended with an early and painfully decisive playoffs loss, all Jack had to do was ask Shitty his real name, and Shitty would drop whatever he was doing and snuggle up behind Jack.

It was different, somehow, than having to actually _ask_ for the comfort. It was easier. It wasn’t something Jack thought he could ever really articulate, but it was safe and given freely and never, ever involved the sort of questions Jack couldn’t answer out loud.

When the coaches announced that the team had voted for Jack as their captain the following year--Jack’s sophomore year, even though a sophomore captain was nearly unprecedented--all Jack could do was look at the faces around him and try to remember how to smile.

It shouldn’t be so hard, should it? They obviously wanted this for him--from him--at least most of them did. And he’d been a captain before, in the Q, had even apparently been good at it, although he wasn’t sure he believed that, and it wasn’t like he could recall a lot of the details anyway.

But this was-- he’d spent so much of this season struggling and failing them and--

They hadn’t even made it to the playoffs and Betsy had been a _great_ captain; how the hell did they think Jack was going to do _better_ when--

He choked out some awkward thanks, at least, and made some promises that he was sure he’d break before the next season ended, and zombied his way through the rest of the banquet before fleeing to the dorms.

Somehow Shitty was already there, with his tie loosened and his suit jacket gone, when Jack knocked on his door. “Shitty, I--” Jack began, feeling his throat tighten. “I need-- What’s your--” He couldn’t even get all the words out before he had to bite down hard against the misery that threatened to spill out, had to clench all his muscles to control the shaking.

But all Shitty said was, “Come on in, man, I could go for a snuggle,” and then he steered Jack toward his messy bed and let Jack curl up with his face in Shitty’s pillow and Shitty’s comforting presence pressed against him. Shitty kept talking while Jack shivered and shook and struggled to breathe, though Jack didn’t register a single word he said. It didn’t matter; the rumble of Shitty’s chest against his back and the puff of his breath on Jack’s neck were just as important as whatever he might have been saying.

Eventually Jack came back to himself, as he always did, shaky and exhausted but alive, and Shitty wrapped up his rambling story. “Anyway, man, that’s why if you ever have kids you shouldn’t make bets with your hedge fund buddies on their names. You’ll end up with a son named Barnaby Sylvester Knight, and trust me, that is no way to start a father-son relationship.”

“That’s a pretty awful name,” Jack whispered. “Thanks, man.”

Shitty just squeezed him tighter and didn’t protest at all when Jack finally drifted off, drooling a little on his pillow.

 

* * *

 

The next year went better. Jack and Shitty moved into the Haus. The team got a fantastic pair of d-men and a terrifyingly efficient five-foot-two art student manager with an appreciation for silence that rivaled Jack’s. They beat Quinnipiac at home, and they squeezed out a win against Harvard.

Jack settled into the rhythms of NCAA hockey. He figured out how to captain the team, sort of. They didn’t make it all the way, but they made it further, and somehow--bewilderingly--no one blamed Jack for their failure, because they elected him captain again the following year.

He didn’t have a panic attack, and that felt more like a victory than anything else.

 

* * *

 

Junior year brought a semester without Lardo, whom he missed sharply; the challenge of a hockey player who can’t take a check; an unprecedented quantity of pies; and more Holster-mandated reruns of _Golden Girls_ than the aging Haus TV could possibly have expected.

Jack and Shitty continued to cuddle, but more often because Shitty was high and ebullient and loudly-demanding of Jack’s company than because Jack was shaking and scared. It wasn’t the sort of progress he could explain to anyone else, but it he still knew it when he saw it.

They still didn’t make it to the playoffs, but Jack found the dull ache of that loss very easy to brush off in favor of the pounding guilt that accompanied Bitty’s concussion and subsequent refusal to hold a grudge.

Shitty just clapped his back and said “You know what to do, man,” before he left for Boston and the endless tribulations of the Knight family home.

Jack realized he didn’t get a fake name from Shitty all year.

 

* * *

 

Jack doesn’t seek out Shitty after their Frozen Four loss. He doesn’t seek out anybody, and he’s not entirely sure why. Bitty finds him anyway, because he’s apparently figured out Jack’s affinity for loading docks. When they finally get back to the Haus, Shitty finds him, too, because he’s apparently figured out Jack.

He settles next to Jack in the reading room, and tucks himself comfortably under Jack’s left arm. On his other side, Jack can still feel the ghost of Bitty’s arms around him, his cheek on Jack’s shoulder. Shitty’s playoff beard, not yet shaved, rubs like sandpaper against the thin material of Jack’s t-shirt. Jack’s own beard just itches; it's been irritating the hell out of him for weeks. He isn’t ready to shave it off.

For a long time, they don’t say anything. Jack’s not shaking. Shitty’s not high. There’s a half-empty Powerade by Jack’s foot, but neither of them have a beer. The night is cool and the campus quiet; even the lacrosse bros across the street seem subdued.

The smell of cinnamon and browned butter floats up from the open kitchen window, but for once there are no upbeat strains of pop music to accompany it.

Jack’s not even gone yet, and already he misses everything so, so intensely.

Out of the blue, Shitty clears his throat. “My name’s actually Brad,” he says. “Bradley Scott Knight.” He shrugs. “So. There you go, bro.”

The tightness in Jack’s chest eases. Not everything is ending; there is a continuity to life. He huffs out an unexpected laugh. “Too bad,” he says. “You’re already in my phone contacts as Boynton.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Okay, but how did 'Brad Knight' turn into 'Shitty'?"
> 
> "Johnson thought of it. He said humor makes the narrative more approachable, and unexplained inside jokes add depth."
> 
> "...right."
> 
> //
> 
> The title is from the Iron & Wine song of the same name, which otherwise doesn't relate to this story at all. Unbeta'd, and with many thanks to Scrivener's random name generator for coming up with more ridiculous names than I ever could have managed on my own.
> 
> Written for the OMGCP Trope Challenge #4: Hurt/Comfort

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [B. Shitty Knight As...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9067156) by [McBangle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/McBangle/pseuds/McBangle)
  * [[Podfic] Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11465598) by [PhagePods (DancingDragon42)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingDragon42/pseuds/PhagePods)




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